The Second Speech of the Islamic State

The first leader of the Zarqawi’ist branch of the jihadi movement in Iraq after the declaration of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), Hamid al-Zawi (Abu Umar al-Baghdadi), gave his second speech on 3 February 2007, an audio statement entitled, “A Conquest From Allah and an Imminent Victory”. The speech attacks those Sunni Islamist insurgents who would be drawn into the American-backed, Shi’a-led Iraqi government and declares the Karama (Dignity) operation against such organisations and all other foes. Al-Zawi frames much of the speech in starkly sectarian terms and believes that ISI has annexed the anti-American cause. Al-Zawi also claims to believe that the U.S. is on the path to defeat; there is an admission that ISI is struggling, but a reassurance that it is worse for the Americans. An English-language version of the speech was released by Al-Furqan Media and is reproduced below.

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All praise be to Allah. We thank Him, we seek His guidance and forgiveness. We seek His refuge from the evils of our souls, and the evil results of our deeds. Whosoever Allah guides, there is none to lead him astray, and whosoever is led astray by Allah, there is none to guide him. I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship but Allah, alone, without partner, and Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

Allah Almighty said: “O you who believe! When you meet those who disbelieve on a battlefield, never turn your backs to them” [Al-Anfal (8): 15].

And He Almighty said: “[O disbelievers] If you sought a judgment, now judgment has come unto you. And if you desist [from attacking believers], it will be better for you, but if you return [to war], so shall we. Not the least good will your forces be, however numerous they be, for verily Allah is with those who believe” [Al-Anfal (8): 19].

It should be known that one of the blessings that Allah has bestowed upon the mujahideen is to unify them under the banner of tawhid [monotheism] and to allow them to build, with their blood, the State of Islam again, after the winds of communism, nationalism, and secularism had stormed the umma [Islamic community or nation], which led to the endurance of the harshest torture, and the deepest repression, and its purity was pillaged to be abducted by the wolves of the Crusaders and the foxes of the Jews, and for their entrails to be torn by the serpents of the tyrants and the scorpions of the Magus [Zoroastrians, i.e. Iran].

Until Allah prepared for this umma some men who do not sleep on wrong-doing and dislike servility. The blood of their ancestors, the Companions, may Allah be pleased with them, and the jealousy of successors to the companions, run in their veins. They got humiliation and submission off their chest and smashed the constraint of submission and remaining behind, until Allah bestowed victory upon them and they laid the foundations of the State of Islam again in the land of [Harun] al-Rashid. And through their actions, good tidings arrived that lighten the chests and soothe the hearts, spite the hateful enemy, and make the friend happy, so the Crusaders gathered their malice and spewed its vengefulness, and declared several times that their war against us is a Crusading ideological war.

Just recently their idiot leader Bush said that this is an ideological war, and it was repeated by one of their sages, the former head of Israeli intelligence, who said: “A third world war has started between the West and radical Islam”. So after fighting us through their agents and acolytes for years, here they are leading the war openly, and this way we got what we wanted and what we planned for, because war with the agents does not deal with head of the evil, and to destroy the beast we had to draw it from its lair, and so it happened.

And thus the idiot [Bush] led his army to where we can ambush it, and lay bombs, and when his feet have sunk into the muck and the ropes of our sons have been wound around his neck, closed off the roads and shut all the doors in his face, secured the net around him, and when he saw that he had been surrounded, he conjured up all his demons, be they humans or genies, consulting them and asking for help. The consultants realised that there is no salvation for those are the soldiers of Allah, who are aided by angels. So they gathered their malice, and they hooted and drummed, and they declared their new-old security plan.

And as such, we give glad tiding to our people, Ahl al-Sunna [the Sunni people], that today we are declaring a plan called al-Karama [Dignity] Plan that will be wider and more secure, with Allah’s will and strength, and it won’t include Baghdad solely but will rather encompass all the lands of the Islamic State, where we will enlarge the battles, and it will end when Bush declares his failure and signs a treaty of defeat, from which he will walk away humiliated and dejected, Allah willing.

The goals (of the plan) are:

First, to protect our people and our honour.

Second, to excise the means of the apostates and finish off what remains of their enclaves and their infidelity bases.

Third, to destroy the Crusader giant and seize the opportunity presented by the collapse in morale of its soldiers and their leaders.

Fourth, to gather the ranks of the mujahedeen and to cement the foundations of the Islamic State, may Allah preserve its glory.

O Muslim youths, put before your eyes the infant corpses, voices of mourning mothers, sighs of elderly men, and ignite the volcano of rage, burn the land under the feet of the Jews and their underlings, annihilate their army, destroy their machines, shoot down their plans, and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush. Ambush them in homes, in valleys, around corners. Use nightfall as your cover, and turn their mornings into fire. Know that your ancestor is Ubada ibn al-Samit, [a companion of the Prophet’s] who said to [the last Christian ruler of Syria] Jabala ibn al-Ayham, the agent of the Romans: “O Jabala, do you not know how Allah has made us victorious over you, and your tyrant has fled, we know that those who remain with you are going to be easy for us to overcome, and we do not fear them, we have waded through much blood and have come to find that Roman blood is the sweetest, so do not miss out on it, for they shall leave tomorrow and you will regret it”.

Roast their flesh with IEDs, tear out their limbs with bombs, and rip out their hearts out with the fear of snipers. And know that the best defence is offense, and don’t dare to put aside your weapons until the war is over for Allah said: “Do not relent in pursuit of the enemy. If you are suffering hardships, they are suffering as you are suffering, but you have hope from Allah [i.e. paradise], while they have none” [Al-Nisa (4): 104].

And know that victory comes with patience, “So do not become faint [i.e. weaken], nor grieve, for you will overcome them if you are [indeed] believers” [Ali Imran (3): 139].

Also know that Allah had counselled you in war when He said, “O you who believe! When you meet [an enemy] force, hold firm and think much of Allah, so that you may be successful. And obey Allah and His Messenger, and dispute not with one-another lest you lose your courage and your strength departs; be patient. Indeed, Allah is with al-Sabirin (the Patient Ones)” [Al-Anfal (8): 45-6].

And make your battle-motto “Allah is Great, Allah’s Religion is Victorious” and raise your voices with it, and remember its meaning in your hearts, for we do not fight for nationalism, but to make the word of Allah supreme.

And I would like to emphasize the following facts to my mujahideen brothers who have not pledge allegiance to the Islamic State:

First, they are our brothers, we will defend them with ourselves and tongues, and we do not accuse them of being infidels or pagans, but we do find a sin in their tardiness in taking up the duty of our time, which is to hold firmly to the rope of Allah by joining with their brothers in the Islamic State, especially since we see the infidels are gathering their malice and are advancing upon us as a single front, then shouldn’t we fight them as a single front too?

“Verily, Allah loves those who fight in His cause in rows [battle ranks], as if they were a solid structure” [Al-Saf (61): 4].

Second, I say to my brothers, the soldiers of the Islamic State, protect your mujahideen brothers, and don’t let them hear from you anything but good things and see good things, since we are still in the phase of establishment, and the laws of the State of Islam are unknown to many, and I am certain that the sincere muwahideen [strict monotheists] are surely coming our way, so be tender, be tender, O servants of Allah.

O free men, the world today lies under the cruelty and tyranny of a nation of slaves who inadvertently became stronger than their masters, who gained an economic strength and a martial strength, not through their brains and efforts, but by stealing the riches of other nations whether they are brainpower or resources. O free men, that nation of slaves and drugs, America, looks harshly and condescendingly upon all the nations of the earth, and not only the “Muslim terrorists” as they say, for the new masters of the White House have shown recently a seething and exposed hostility against the French-German-Belgian alliance.

Since France owes its freedom to America and for this it must always pay a price, first in its dignity by showing subservience, second, in its economy, and third, to reduce its military influence in any means. And for this they kept France away from the military council of the NATO alliance, and they did not rest until they sabotaged the European rapid reaction force project. The American lance would not sit idle as its currency falls in a major way before the euro, and the economies of many countries have switched to the euro, and in a short period of time the dollar has lost more than forty percent of its value.

And not much needs to be said about hostility to China, for it is so rude to the point of being odd. We all remember the crisis over the American spy plane over Chinese territory and how the Americans forced the Beijing government to hand it back in mint condition, and not only that but forced them to sign a treaty allowing America to spy on China if this activity was done nearby international waters. And then there was Bush’s grand insult to the Beijing government when he said, regarding the crisis in Taiwan: “We will help Taiwan to defend itself”. As for the Russians, well, they have lost everything. For the allies of yesterday have turned into the foes of today.

America treats its agents from among the Arab rulers in a humiliating and disdainful manner, so humiliating and disdainful that it begs one to wonder, for Saudi Arabia is now the incubator of terrorism, after the monk’s garment that was being worn by Al-Salul, to deceive the faithful into worshiping the tyrant, has stopped being useful to the American master. And [General Pervez] Musharraf’s insanity and his unbridled lunge towards Uncle Sam has turned against him, for he does not cooperate sufficiently, according to Cheney. And what [Musharraf] got in return was generous nuclear deals to the bitterest enemies of his country, the Indians.

O you oppressed in the world, we call upon you to halt the reckless leviathan that only feels those with heavy feet. Allah has enabled us to kill more than 75,000 soldiers and many multitudes more have been wounded and disabled, many of whom are mercenary gang members who are running after a green card, and their reward was to be dumped into the valleys, rivers and seas after their secret mass graves in the Iraqi desert were uncovered. And let North Korea know that it owes its nuclear tests to the mujahideen in Iraq, for Korea is one of the points in the alleged “axis of evil”.

In addition, the Persians have gathered more cards through which to manoeuvre, even though we hate this fact. And the Ba’thists of Syria need to know that except for the jihad of the sons of Mesopotamia, they would have been hanging from the scaffolds today. Thus, we advise and warn them not to fall into the same trap that was set for Musharraf, and to shake hands with Washington in order to halt al-Jihad in Iraq, because this is not beneficial for them on all counts.

O ummat al-Islam [“nation of Islam” or “Islamic community”], we stand at the same point that was stood upon by the Companions with the Prophet, at the start of al-Medina phase, and our battle with the Persians has started as it has with the Romans, but the matter of the Persians is easier and more banal than that of the Romans, and it will especially be so after the impending limited American nuclear strike against Iranian military and nuclear facilities, which will come after the anticipated failure of Bush’s security plan for Iraq that will force Bush to draw up a treaty by which he will withdraw from the Islamic State, and that will give him the opportunity to halt the expansion of the Persian Empire after the Americans had come to realise that a conventional war is useless, especially after their bitter experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. The American Congress has reached a conclusion that entering a long struggle with the Iranians will anger their allies, and thus the Americans will lose many of their cards, thus a limited nuclear strike against reactors and Iranian military facilities would be best.

So I ask Ahl al-Sunna of Iran from today, to stay away from large Iranian military bases and especially the nuclear ones, and coalesce around one another and unite their ranks for the day when their enemy is to be broken is at hand, Allah willing.

O ummat al-Islam, my beloved umma, the Magus have profited off of our people in Palestine, and they were aided in doing so by a bunch of idiots who threw themselves into their lap. But by Allah’s wisdom and ability, He exposed the malice and cruelty of them for their grandsons and sons among the Rafida of Iraq are visiting all sorts of torture and murder upon the Palestinians in Iraq, and are forcing them to flee to the borders of the nearby countries, where they sleep on the ground under the stars, and have fallen between the hammer of the Rafida of Iraq, and the anvil of Alawites of Syria, and Jordan’s Jews.

And today, as part of the responsibility I bear, I call upon my people, the Palestinians, to return to the Islamic State of Iraq and especially to al-Anbar, Saladin, and Diyala, for we have prepared tens of villages for them with the best houses and farms and fields, crisscrossed by rivers, and protected by the men of the Islamic State, that were awarded to us by Allah as ghanima [booty] from the sons of Ibn al-Alqami, all praise and thanks be to Allah, so glad tiding, O my people, for Allah has granted after difficulty relief and a way out and has brought ease after hardship.

O our people in the Islamic State, know that your prayers are the firmest arrows in our quiver, so help us with it and fear Allah in secret and public, feed the poor and needy, spread the greeting of peace, and pray at night while people are asleep you shall enter paradise peacefully, and know that one hardship will never beat two eases.

“And Allah has full power and control over His Affairs, but most of mankind know it not” [Yusuf (12): 21].